Nature reserves and national parks in the Arctic have agreed with tour operators to stimulate demand for tourism in specially protected nature areas (SPNA), since Russians are interested in trips like this, said Alexei Tikhnenko, Deputy Director of the Department of State Policy and Regulation of SPNA at the Natural Resources Ministry.

“The Natural Resources Ministry, represented by nature reserves and national parks, has concluded agreements with tour operators and travel agents. In total, we have 88 agreements on the Arctic and over 230 agreements on the Far Eastern Federal District. In the course of this interaction, we see the highest interest among our citizens in visiting specially protected nature areas in the Arctic and the Far Eastern Federal District,” he said, speaking at a meeting in the Federation Council.

As Mr Tikhnenko noted, the goal was to increase the tourist flow in specially protected nature areas to 10.3 million people by 2024 as part of the Ecology national project, but last year, these figures were already exceeded (14 million).

“Compared to last year, the number of tourists in specially protected nature areas in the Russian Far East has increased by 40 percent totaling 474,000 people. In the Arctic, tourist volumes increased by 25 percent, but this does not mean that there is less interest,” Tikhnenko emphasized.

He recalled that in the next three years, 5.1 billion rubles, including at least 1.4 billion in 2023, will be allocated for the development of tourism infrastructure in specially protected nature areas.